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name the car quiz

AND PASSED WITH AN ABOVE AVERAGE SCORE. B+

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friends of the twingo

In the latest bit of panty waisted whingeing to appear from our betters on the other side of the pond, Friends of the Earth is in a snit over the latest antics of Top Gear*.   According to FoE, the show “appeared to have gone out of its way to be as crass and juvenile as possible“.**  FoE campaigner Mr Declan Allison said that “The wanton destruction of tens of thousands of pounds worth of machinery impresses no-one. It’s a wasteful extravagance and, in the middle of a global recession, in very poor taste“.

Poor Taste?  Mr Allison, the proles actually enjoy watching TG.  Shocking, yes, and very unenlightened of us, but for a few brief moments it allows us to escape our wretched lives and seek enjoyment in mindless humour.  I know, I know we simply don’t get it, but then that’s what you can expect from the grey mass of  drudges – we’re not like you.  Why we can barely get through a sitting of Waiting for Godot, or plough through a Margaret Atwood novel*** - we just want our Renaults destroyed in the most imaginative of fashions and if there is a tinge of humour about the whole thing, then so much the better.  Oh and a beer or two to chase it down with wouldn’t be out of place.

Maybe FoE didn’t get it;  TG fired a Renault Twingo into the ocean!  What can possibly be wrong with that?   Removing one C02 emitting, gasoline consuming Renault from the planet has got to rank quite high as one of the most unselfish and altruistic acts I’ve heard of in a long time.   Of course if FoE and their ilk had their way the western world would live in perpetual recession,  a sort of purgatory for having had the temerity to produce the most fantastic economic miracle known to mankind.  Instead FoE won’t rest until twingo’s aren’t produced at all (let alone flung into the ocean).  

Quit Whining!

—————

* Top Gear, for those of you most of unfortunate to have never heard of it, is quite possibly the best entertainment ever produced by the BBC.  Please note that I said entertainment.  It has no other redeeming qualities – but I love it.

** That’s sort of the point, really.

***Obscure and difficult Canadian author.   But there I go revealing my elitest tendancies again.

gubmint motors (your tax dollars at work)

Well, well.   I think that 16% ownership stake in General Motors is going to take a little while longer to ‘pay off’.    Sales volume at the General is off by 20% from the same period last year as folks continue to shun the ‘pelosi mobiles’, while sales volume at Ford (which in case you need reminding – didn’t require a bailout) are up by 16%.    Great pick Dalton and Stephen.  I, for one am happy I picked up FoMoCo at $1.22 in December 2008.

ht 

Brands and companies are both displayed in descending order according to their percentage change in volume sales. There were 26 selling days in August 2009 and 27 selling days in August 2008, so the change in monthly sales volume will be different than the change in the average daily sales rate for each brand/company.

Brand	Volume %	8/09	8/08	DSR*%	DSR 8/09	DSR 8/08
Kia	60.38	40,198	25,065	66.54	1,546	928
Subaru	51.51	28,683	18,932	57.33	1,103	701
Hyundai	47.01	60,467	41,130	52.67	2,326	1,523
Audi	25.77	8,057	6,406	30.61	310	237
Volvo	24.78	5,826	4,669	29.58	224	173
Pontiac	23.35	29,921	24,257	28.09	1,151	898
Ford	21.25	161,369	133,088	25.91	6,207	4,929
Honda	15.21	151,814	131,766	19.65	5,839	4,880
Mazda	12.09	26,542	23,680	16.40	1,021	877
Volkswagen	11.35	24,823	22,292	15.64	955	826
Toyota	10.94	202,196	182,252	15.21	7,777	6,750
Porsche	8.69	1,526	1,404	12.87	59	52
Mercury	8.19	9,080	8,393	12.35	349	311
Nissan	0.17	97,580	97,417	4.02	3,753	3,608
Suzuki	-5.46	5,749	6,081	-1.82	221	225
Jeep	-6.11	22,041	23,476	-2.50	848	869
Mini	-6.55	5,111	5,469	-2.95	197	203
Mercedes-Benz	-7.54	17,112	18,507	-3.98	658	685
Chevrolet	-9.16	168,130	185,080	-5.66	6,467	6,855
Dodge	-15.80	52,562	62,422	-12.56	2,022	2,312
BMW Group	-21.30	24,343	30,931	-18.27	936	1,146
Lexus	-21.82	22,892	29,281	-18.81	880	1,084
Chrysler	-23.50	18,619	24,337	-20.55	716	901
BMW	-24.47	19,232	25,462	-21.56	740	943
Mitsubishi	-25.95	6,813	9,200	-23.10	262	341
Infiniti	-30.19	7,732	11,076	-27.51	297	410
Acura	-36.21	9,625	15,089	-33.76	370	559
Lincoln	-38.43	5,874	9,540	-36.06	226	353
Smart	-44.59	1,418	2,559	-42.46	55	95
GMC	-45.15	23,145	42,194	-43.04	890	1,563
Buick	-51.71	8,612	17,833	-49.85	331	660
Cadillac	-55.01	6,931	15,405	-53.28	267	571
Saturn	-58.41	8,479	20,385	-56.81	326	755
Hummer	-64.03	777	2,160	-62.64	30	80
Saab	-67.80	484	1,503	-66.56	19	56
COMPANIES
Ford Motor Company	16.99	182,149	155,690	21.49	7006	5766
American Honda	9.93	161,439	146,855	14.16	6209	5439
Toyota Mo Co	6.41	225,088	211,533	10.50	8657	7835
Nissan North America	-2.93	105,312	108,493	0.80	4050	4018
Chrysler Group LLC	-15.43	93,222	110,235	-12.18	3585	4083
General Motors	-20.19	246,479	308,817	-17.12	9480	11438

bucket list – 01

Herein established Junior’s bucket list – in no particular order.  Simply as I think of them.  

First up – drive the Nordshleife.   (I wonder if rental car insurance covers this sort of madness?)

my carbon footprint is bigger than yours

sound off – ontario highways, pay for use?

Hwy 401 at Montreal Rd circa 1965? Notice how little traffic there is....

Anyone who has travelled the 400 series of highways in Ontario, will have noticed both the substantial rise in commercial truck traffic and the near simultaneous degradation of the highway infrastructure itself.  A while ago I hummed and hawed about whether it was time to consider usage charges or tolls on our highways.  Usage charges, sometimes known as congestion charges, provide  some significant benefits, (1) primarily by ensuring that those who use the roads the most pay for the wear and tear (2) it prices in what economists refer to as externalities into the total cost of ownership of the road, and (3) depending upon the structure of the charges, it can influence the conditions of use, particularly by encouraging certain types of traffic to use the road at periods of lower demand.   Two recent activities prompted me to revisit the idea – the ongoing widening of the 401 between Sydenham Road and Hwy 15 (and eventually to Joyceville Road), and a visit to Germany and the Netherlands. 

around the world 35.3 (find of the day in nordlingen)

08 March 2009:

Every now and then you come across something worth a second look.  As I was rolling slowly down a side street in Nordlingen looking for a parking place, and ultimately a mid morning coffee and snack, I spotted this rather homely creature parked alongside the curb. 

Without knowing exactly what it was, I felt instinctively that it was no model of military utility truck that had been employed by western armies – but it did not look brutish enough to have been manufactured under duress from the east.  

Sure enough it was neither.  You can take a guess at what make and model it is, or cheat and look here, or here…..

los angeles to new york in four minutes

around the world 35.1 (the brazen – rental – chariot)

makes junior a happy traveller

in an ideal….

….and just world I would own one of these, but more likely in a fit of practicality I might instead drive the Volkswagen Passat R36 ["look dear, side impact air bags"].   What’s not to like?  It hauls family and it is sehr schnell as they say.  Sadly, unavailable in the land of maple syrup.

Meanwhile, I must placate myself with the Audi A4 rental wagon – a nice enough beast to tame the autobahn – but somewhat lacking in character. 

Enough with the rolling stock already- this could go on all day - rather the point is to ask – if money were no object and in an ideal world what would you…..?

around the world – part 32.4 (zurich – liechtenstein)

Dec 06 2008:

One of the more delightful aspects of international travel is that on occasion one’s travels coincide with those of your friends (Friends of Junior FoJ) – specifically in this case with two of my dearest friends.    It would seem that based on historic trends, our European adventures cross paths about every two years or so – the last being in Prague in September 2006.   So when the opportunity arose to visit them in Zurich, Switzerland I didn’t hesitate.  Of course when we noted our itineraries this time around, one of my first thoughts was to quickly determine how far it was from Greding, and secondly, how fast I might bridge the distance.  This tendency of mine to reduce distance to a function of speed, was further cemented when during our escape from Zurich into Liechtenstein, and as we were ascending a relatively steep and twisty road, all three of us simultaneously commented thusly:  (1) Mr FoJ and Old School Chum “what an interesting place for a cafe”, (2) Mrs FoJ and also Senior Executive “what a lovely view” and (3) Junior “what a road for a sports car”.  

Not that the excuse for a visit was absolutely tied to an opportunity to drive the hell out of a Mercedes C220, but it did help.  

It is, of course, impossible to see anything more than just a fraction of a large city like Zurich in just over 24 hours but I think I did my best to gain a sense of the area.  Immediately following check-in around 1100hrs, I hiked into town under an overcast sky.  I wanted first to get the lay of the land, finding various districts of interest in relation to my hotel and then secondly, using Tyler Cowen’s ethnic dining guide as a rule of thumb – particularly useful for finding interesting eateries in foreign cities, to find a suitable restaurant for lunch.    Fortunately I spied a mexican restaurant just as the skies opened and it began pouring down rain.  A couple of beers and an enchilada later, the rain had stopped and it was time to work off the calories with the march back up hill and a quiet rest. 

Later I met up with FoJ and we wandered somewhat aimlessly through town (to be fair Mrs FoJ likely knew not only where we were,  but where we were going to eat all along) arriving a delightful Italian restaurant.  Much pleasant conversation, food and drinks followed by more wandering throughout the old town, culminating in several attempts to capture the very pretty christmas displays in pixels – not entirely successfully though.    We parted ways agreeing to meet up on Sunday morning to make a quick dash down to Liechtenstein.

I stayed at the Hotel Rex, listed as a three star hotel on hrs.de, but whilst the room was modern,  I found it be quite small, and with very little soundproofing.   It has a decent location being about 1.5km from the old town and thus clearly within walking range. 

 How to get there:

By road from Greding:  join Autobahn A9 south towards Munich approximately 70km.  At Kreuz Neufahrn, take A92 SW towards the A99.  Join the A99 SW following signs for Stuttgart, noting also the signs for “A” (Austria) and “CH” (Switzerland).  Exit the A99 onto the A96 towards Bregenz – note that there is a break in the Autobahn of about 8km in length in the vicinity of Gebrazhofen, where traffic is slow as it is moved onto a two lane road – the completion of the Autobahn in this area is likely to be completed in a couple of years.    Before the Austrian border ensure that you purchase the motorway tax sticker or ‘vignette’ and while you are at it, you may as well pick up the Swiss motorway tax sticker.  Follow signs for St Gallen and the A1 towards Zurich.  Have your GPS handy, as Zurich is full of one-way streets, streets which are not through roads, and junctions where it is impossible to turn.

let ‘em go bankrupt

or you might just wind up with one of these…..

around the world – part 26.6 (interlaken to greding)

January 24 2008:

I must admit that I do love driving.  I can thank a lifelong friend for infecting me with the driving bug, something to do with an ill spent youth driving around Ottawa for no apparent reason.  I consider myself to be a fairly good driver, although I will admit I have never spent any time on a closed course track and thus cannot claim to be an expert.  There are only a few drives I will remember for quite a while and today’s was one of them. 

I left Interlaken at around 0700hrs in near dark as the Swiss valleys are deep enough that sunlight at this time of year does not touch the valley floors until well after nine AM.  My navigation system continued to warn me of ’snow on the road ahead’, perhaps unaware that the driver was Canadian and thus the warning produced no element of fear.   Almost immediately upon departing Interlaken the route climbed from Brienzwiler up through the spiral tunnel to the Brunigpass (1008m) and then down alongside the Lungerer See and on into Luzern.  Despite every attempt of Mercedes to deter me from my route, I never did encounter any snow on the road at all – in fact snow was conspicuous by its absence.

By 0800 I had encountered the Luzern rush hour - too many automobiles on a constricted tunnelled highway equals ’stau’.  Once beyond Luzern I left the autobahn to wind my way up a secondary road past Zug and over a mountain pass and down the other side into a lovely valley.  At the crest the valley below presented a lovely vista as the sun burned off low lying moisture creating a faint haze over green hills and pastures.  Green, because the alpine region seems to have been experiencing unseasonably warm weather, with very little evidence of snow below 3000 feet. 

In a previous post I mentioned the large number of tunnels I encountered on my way down.  I recall thinking at the time that there ought to be pull outs either just before or just after exiting certain tunnels since the reason they were built in the first place was to transit some awfully large yet picturesque mountains.   I did think to keep my camera up front on the return trip and thus was able to capture a few cool tunnel entrances.   I think the longest tunnel I passed through was the 6.7km long Pfander Tunnel at Bregenz Austria, rather than any tunnel in Switzerland.  I have heard it said, and I did look as carefully as I could (at 80kmh) in an attempt to confirm,  that the Swiss Army has each tunnel prepared with emplaced charges to collapse tunnels in case of invasion. 

While I didn’t note any prepared defences, I did see elements of the Swiss Army on the motorway as I headed towards Austria.  A couple of G-Wagon jeeps on my way to Interlaken and today on the way back I screamed past one of their Eagle II Light Armoured Vehicles.   Apparently the Swiss continue to believe and demonstrate ‘armed neutrality’.  Regrettably I was unable to grab my camera quickly enough to snap a photo, and I am not sure that it would have been welcomed if I had done.  Had to go to Janes to get a good shot of one.

Have I mentioned just how beautiful the Swiss Alps are?   As I rounded a corner heading north towards the Austrian border I encountered a simply stunning vista – out came the camera again.  Please don’t ask how I was able to both drive and take pictures – all I can say is thank goodness for digital cameras because a lot of foreshortened dashboard pics were thankfully discarded.  This is the view seen from near Haag (Rheintal) on the A13 heading north.

Once I entered Germany, as it was a lovely sunny day, it was easy enough to reach appropriate autobahn speeds and the two thirds distance through Baden Wurtemburg and Bavaria actually took less time to transit than departing Switzerland.  296km in about 1hour 50 minutes due in part to largely empty roads and very good weather.

is it time for toll roads?

Those who have heard me heap praise on the Autobahn system will have almost certainly heard my equally poor opinion of the highways in Ontario.  Too many smarter folks have already made the connection between the poor state of our freeways and the costs to our economy, namely in the form patchwork repairs, congestion (notably the substantial increase in freight trucking) and safety. 

Although the German autobahn system is toll free for private motor vehicles it does have a toll system for commercial trucking.  Austria and Switzerland have gone one step further and adopted an autobahn flat fee (Austria annual highway toll = 93euro / $150) structure for all motorists, residents or otherwise.  Cleverly, Austria offers tourists or those transiting the country a short flat fee toll which covers the few days tourists use their road system, but which offset maintenance costs.  Additionally failure to obtain a vignette is punished with steep fines. 

Is it time for Ontario to adopt a similar system?

I would advocate a structured system in which Ontario residents pay a flat fee for use of our 400 series highways, tourists or visitors pay a fee based on the number of days travelling in the province (could also be built into car rental contracts?) and trucking companies pay a sliding scale according to the time of use.

Of course, all of this is predicated on the idea that the tolls raised would actually go for the improvement of the road network rather than disappear into general revenues to fund pet projects.

Thoughts?